A courier company supplying staff to Yodel has been fined £4,000 for employing an illegal worker, following a raid on Yodel’s Mitcham depot in May last year.

During the raid by some 40 immigration officials at the firm’s Ellis Road site, 10 men were arrested. Two were subsequently released after it emerged dual nationality allowed them to work in Europe. Of the remaining eight, four have now been deported while the cases of the other four are still being progressed, a Home Office spokesman said.

The subcontractor courier company was hit with the fine after it was found to have employed a 37 year old Ghanaian man who had overstayed his visa.

No further action is being taken in relation to the other employees arrested on the day, who all worked for two other courier subcontractors, said the spokesman.

A spokesman for Yodel said: "Yodel requires all of its workforce, both directly employed and supplied via third party contractors, to be eligible to work in the UK and we fully support the action taken by the Home Office.

"We have been working closely with the authorities on their investigation.  They were satisfied that Yodel had carried out all of the necessary checks on the workforce at that time, but advised us that we had been provided with counterfeit papers. We are now trialling a more robust vetting system, including similar technology to that used at passport control, to check the documentation supplied to us. In addition to this we have received high level Home Office training on the current techniques being used by illegal immigrants and how to identify them. "

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